


Hellspawn

by Ito (itonomen)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley are Warlock Dowling's Parents, Crowley Loves Kids (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Warlock Dowling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, For the most part, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, More Fluff, POV Warlock Dowling, Parental Crowley (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Warlock Dowling Needs a Hug, Warlock Dowling has abandonment issues, Warlock Dowling is a good boy, all the genders for crowley, bring a toothbrush to this one or u'll get cavities, he is also a little shit, just two gay celestial beings and their smol smug son
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28632666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itonomen/pseuds/Ito
Summary: When Nanny Ashtoreth and Brother Francis leave the Dowling's employment a month before Warlock's tenth birthday, the young Not-Antichrist is left alone and relatively unsupervised in a large manor with absent parents would could care less about his wellbeing.Warlock blames himself for Nanny leaving him. When Nanny comes back on his eleventh birthday, disguised as a waiter, he panics and runs away, accidentally earning himself a first row ticket to the apocalypse.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Warlock Dowling, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Warlock Dowling
Comments: 13
Kudos: 65





	Hellspawn

When Warlock Dowling is ten years old his closest acquaintance, Harris Connor, receives a cat for his birthday. 

It is important, Warlock believes, to stress the fact that Harris is merely an acquaintance, because of all the spoiled, rich brats his parents insist on forcing him to socialize with, Harris is by far the most spoiled, though thankfully not the brattiest. That isn’t to say that he wasn’t still plenty capable of acting like a brat, he just wasn’t the biggest brat Warlock had met. (that title belonged to Travis Reilly, who’s parents owned a chain of successful five star hotels) 

Warlock...doesn’t really have any proper friends. The Dowlings however, insist that at least once a week, Warlock was to play with the children of suitably wealthy and influential people of the Dowling’s choosing. This was why Warlock was here, in Harris’s bedroom in the first place. 

Harris isn’t cruel, he just prefers to stay glued to his phone of the week, rather than waste his time on social graces, much like Warlock with his books and his video games. Usually when Warlock is forced to hang out and make nice with him, they just sit in total silence, Harris tapping away on his phone while Warlock plays Mortal Kombat on his Switch. 

None of these long winded facts have more than minor importance, but it _is_ necessary to understand that A) Harris Connor has a cat B)Harris Connor is NOT Warlock’s friend and C)Harris Connor is far too spoiled, even for Warlock’s (who is exceptionally spoiled himself) standards. 

Case in point: 

“Ugh, it’s so ugly! I don’t know what my mother was thinking.”

Mow, as her breeder had named her, was a purebred sphynx. She was pink and hairless with bright blue eyes that peered at her new owner with a lazy sort of disdain. 

“She seems alright to me.” Warlock said. He crouched down onto the ground and made eye contact with the regal thing. 

“You can have it then.” Harris replied dismissively. “I definitely don’t want it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, whatever.” 

Warlock perked up. He had never had a pet before. Before Brother Francis had....before he and Nanny left him, he had often insisted that animals were friends, and that there was no sense in caging rabbits and hedgehogs and especially not dogs, which was about the only thing he and Nanny had agreed on about that particular subject. 

“Dogs are nasty creatures.” Nanny had often said. “You must never get a dog and you especially must never name one.” 

Cats though, Nanny had liked cats well enough. Sometimes in the early mornings Warlock would follow her out to the gardens. After she had yelled at the plants to behave for Brother Francis and sprayed the pests that he hadn’t had the heart to get rid of she would take a bag of cat food out of the shed and croon at the strays that crawled out of the woodworks for a free meal. 

“Cats are true agents of chaos and mayhem.” Nanny had explained while scratching a scarred tabby behind the ears. “They do exactly what they please, when they please, and often cause trouble for no reason other than that they wanted to. They’re a bit like ducks that way.” 

(Nanny had liked ducks too, but Warlock thought they were weird) 

Warlock held out his hand and allowed Mow to crane her head out from under Harris’s bed to sniff him. After a moment, she crept out from her hiding place entirely and graciously allowed Warlock to scratch her behind the ears and around the neck much more gently than he normally would to a cat, mindful of her sensitive skin. 

Warlock snuck a glance at Harris, but he was already tapping away at his phone, which was still glossy with newness. Within a week, Warlock knew that he would set the phone down on its face, resulting in the smallest of scratches that he would declare to his mother made the whole phone unusable and that he needed a new one.

Mow, meanwhile, decided that this funny two legged kitten was much easier to train than the other, less well-behaved and mostly unresponsive kitten, and climbed into his lap to lay claim on him. 

Warlock held Mow close to his chest.

For the first time since Nanny had left him, he felt understood.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Nanny and Brother Francis left, they hadn’t even said goodbye. 

It had been a month before Warlock’s tenth birthday. Nanny had been acting bothered about something lately so Warlock had tried to make her tea the way he had seen Brother Francis do it. 

Only when Warlock had given it to her, instead of looking happy and more relaxed, Nanny had looked a bit like she was going to cry. 

“Thank you, hellspawn.” She’d murmured softly. 

That night, Warlock had brushed his teeth for two whole minutes, cleaned behind his ears, and put all of his toys away by himself instead of making one of the maids doing it. 

But instead of Nanny coming into his room to tuck him in and read the next chapter of Warlock’s favorite astronomy textbook, as per The Agreement he and Nanny had negotiated when he was six, no one came to tuck him in. 

Normally a breach of The Agreement of Nanny’s part would be cause for a level 3 (on a scale of 1 to five) tantrum with massive tears and screaming and toys thrown about to be broken or cleaned away by a servant later. It was a war cry that would not cease until Nanny upheld her end of the agreement plus interest for having broken The Agreement in the first place (Interest being homemade hot chocolate in bed and _two_ chapters from Warlock’s favorite astronomy book) and Warlock had only been forced to resort to such measures once before. 

The first time Warlock had been six and a half, The Agreement hadn’t been agreed upon for more than a few months and Nanny had promised that if Warlock was ‘Reasonably Polite’ at school ‘Except Under Extreme Circumstances Where It Is Perfectly Reasonable To Be Unreasonable’ for a whole month, then as per a newly instated Clause 3 of The agreement (A very important document written in red crayon in Nanny’s loopy handwriting and hung on wall over Warlock’s toy chest) Nanny would personally pick up Warlock from school and take him out for ice cream and they would take the ice cream home to share with Brother Francis so that Warlock could play in the garden with the garden snakes and hedgehogs while Nanny and Brother Francis chatted quietly together and exchange funny banter and poked fun at each other under the shade of the dogwood tree by the porch. 

But Nanny had not picked Warlock up. Warlock didn’t know _why,_ only that the family chauffeur had picked him up instead and that it had made Warlock feel _very_ betrayed, mostly because, of all the adults in his life, Nanny at least, had never, ever, lied to him ever. 

Nanny had been very sorry though, when she had sped up to Warlock’s school at a wicked speed in her very old black car, to pacify a screaming, thrashing Warlock who had refused to get into the family limo. 

After that, things had turned out alright. Nanny had apologised for getting caught up in some _other_ work and forgetting to pick up Warlock, and afterwards in the safety of the garden with their ice cream in hand Nanny had complimented the size and sheer levels of wrath in Warlock’s tantrum. 

But, that night, just four weeks away from Warlock’s birthday, Nanny had seemed so sad, and so small. He just...hadn’t had the heart to kick up a fuss over anything. 

The next morning however, Warlock wishes he had. 

“Oh, Miss Ashtoreth is gone, along with that gardener, you’re getting a little old for nannies anyways.” Mrs. Dowling said in a bored tone when Warlock demanded to know where Nanny had gone. 

Gone. Just gone. No explanations, or even a note. Nanny’s room was barren, as if she had never been there, Brother Francis’s room too. 

Mrs. Dowling had no intention of filling in the parental void she had once paid Nanny to fill now that she was gone. Neither did Mr. Dowling. Aside from the occasional demand to make nice with a fellow politician’s child or to appear at some important dinner party, Warlock almost never saw his parents. 

At first, Warlock had tried behaving in the most horrid ways possible. He screamed and cried over every little thing, he picked fights with his classmates and argued with his teachers and stopped turning in his homework. He broke every single clause of the Agreement that he could think of. 

He hoped that if he was awful enough, the Dowling’s would beg Nanny to come back so that she could control him. 

Instead Mr. Dowling started taking more and more jobs out of the country, and Mrs. Dowling went vacationing with her high society friends for weeks at a time, leaving Warlock under the very loose supervision of the servants and the household security. 

It was like Warlock didn’t exist. 

He was alone. 

Now, however, Warlock had Mow. 

Mow was exceptionally spoiled for a cat now that she was under Warlock’s care. She donned red and black cashmere sweaters to keep her pink skin warm and a little blue collar with a silk bow tie attached to it. She had a self-cleaning litter box and more expensive toys than she could ever hope to need. 

The maids who had been required to take all of the Amazon boxes full of cat things had suggested that it was all a bit excessive, but they didn’t understand. 

Cats are clever. They do as they please, and if it pleased Mow, she could easily find a way to slip out of the house and disappear into the night. 

For a cat to stay with their owner, they have to want to stay. They need to be happy. 

So, Warlock would keep Mow happy. He read books on proper cat care, he let her bully him off of his own pillow at night and even paused his video games to give her as many pets and scritches as she wanted whenever she crawled into his lap. 

In turn, Mow knew that her kitten was very sad. He had no proper mother or sire, no littermates to play with. That left all of the teaching and nurturing to Mow. It was a very difficult job but she was sure she was up to the task. 

She sat on his shoulders whenever they went for walks in the garden and crept out at night to bring back mice and small birds, to make sure her boy was eating enough, because he only ever picked boredly at his odd human food. 

They were an odd pair, but then, as Warlock was soon to find out, these were odd times. 

\--------------------------------------------------------

Warlock crouched in the bushes, stock still, silent as a snake and just as stealthy as he hid from IT and THEM. 

IT wanted him to leave the safety of his solitude to great THEM. But Warlock didn’t want to see THEM, he hated THEM. But Warlock was a clever, deadly master of stealth, born to crush his enemies under his heels and he would _not-_

“Merrrp?”

“Mow, shush!”

“There you are!” 

Mrs. Dowling, occasionally known as Harriet, Mother, or IT, pulled her only son out from between the garden hedges by the wrist. 

“I don’t have time for one of your little rebellions, Warlock. I have been planning your birthday party for over a month now and you _will_ go out to the patio and socialize with your father’s associates’ children. They’ll all be inheriting their parent’s businesses someday and you’re going to need these connections when you go into politics.” 

Warlock, freshly eleven years old, sighed and bit his cheek to stop himself from telling IT that he didn’t want to go into politics, he wanted to study astrophysics and fly to the stars. Or possibly be a historian and study ancient literature. He wasn’t sure yet. But he definitely didn’t want to be president or whatever. 

“You’ll thank me when you’re older.” Mrs. Dowling continued, oblivious to her son’s displeasure. 

Warlock would certainly not thank her, but that was for him to know and her to find out when he moved all of his saved up allowance and trust fund money to a separate bank account and moved away to London to study the stars at Oxford on a scholarship when he turned eighteen.

(This was plan A in a special mental folder that Warlock labeled simply as ‘running away opportunities’. It also included plans B through L and counting, in the order of what was most logical and likely.) 

Harriet Dowling led Warlock by the arm to the party venue, which was full of spoiled rich brats running amok around a spread of sweets and junk food that made Warlock’s stomach turn. 

“Go and play with your friends while I go and greet the entertainment. The original group had to cancel but I got you a magician instead.”

“Not my friends.” Warlock mumbled but he dutifully shuffled over to the snack table. After grabbing three plain ritz crackers and a couple slices of cheese (the healthiest things he could find on the whole table) he plopped down cross legged in the shade of his favorite dogwood tree. 

Warlock yawned and nibbled at a cracker while a magician in a pale, cream colored suit with a tartan bow tie made his way to the front of the crowd and attempted to get the hoard of spoiled rich kids excited about something that wasn’t a violent cartoon or the latest Iphone. 

Mow plodded into Warlock’s lap and he scowled at her but gave her a slice of cheese when she sniffed at it. 

“I’m still mad at you.” He murmured to Mow as he scratched her behind the ears. “We could have stayed hidden all day and none of these stupid kids would’ve noticed anyways.” 

A tall server approached Warlock with a tray full of slices of cake. 

“Chocolate cake, young sir?” 

“No.” Warlock groused without looking at the server. 

“You sure? I haven’t seen you eat all since the party started? Have a big breakfast?” 

“No” Warlock said more firmly, this time snapping his head up to glare at the waiter just like how he learned from Nanny. “I just don’t like stupid junk food, and I’m never hungry.”

The waiter looked taken aback. Warlock squinted at him. There was something familiar about this waiter. He was incredibly tall and thin, with shoulder length red hair pulled into a half bun and round black shades, Just like…

The waiter made a disapproving sound and turned to try and serve the other children, who were growing louder in their insults to the admittedly rather terrible magician who was fumbling with some linked silver hoops. 

As the waiter turned, Warlock froze. 

For just a second, maybe two, Warlock had seen, through the gap in the side of his (her?) shades, and glimpsed a pair of bright, golden eyes, with slitted pupils. 

Warlock’s breath caught. There was only one person in the whole world (as far as he knew, being only barely eleven.) with eyes like those, and that hair, and the lanky limbs, and-

The Hoard of children had grown loud and violent, a food fight had broken out but the only thing Warlock could register was white noise. 

_Nanny?_

\---------------------------------------------------------

Warlock _ached_ to leap up and tackle Nanny (He _knew_ it was her, he’d know his Nanny anywhere.), to scream and cry and lock his arms around her waist so she wouldn’t _leave_ again, but...but. 

Nanny had left because she wanted to. 

The Dowlings hadn’t fired her. No one had dared to be mean to her, or harass her. Same with Brother Francis. 

Nanny had been sad. Maybe Warlock had made her sad. She had always called him her little hellspawn, but maybe she hadn’t said that because she loved him, maybe she said because Warlock was Bad, and too Bratty. Maybe…

Maybe _Warlock_ had made Nanny leave.

Maybe everything was all _His_ fault! 

The white noise grew. Warlock’s chest ached and he realised it was because he wasn’t breathing. 

A slice of cake flew past Warlock’s head and splattered against the trunk of the dogwood tree that Nanny used to spread out a blanket underneath on clear nights to teach him about the stars in a soft, gentle voice. 

Warlock wrapped his arms around Mow and bolted. 

  
  


\------------------------------------------------------

**Author's Note:**

> Whats up? im excited for my first fic in the good omens fandom and humbly beg for input, ideas, critics, and anything else you, dear readers, can spare in the comment section below, thanks and good night!


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